Borderlands 7-Inch Figures by McFarlane – Pre-Orders Now Live

Back at Toy Fair 2017, we got our first look at some upcoming Borderlands 2 7-Inch Scale Figures by McFarlane Toys. The two figures, part of McFarlane’s Color Tops Collection, include Tiny Tina and Handsome Jack. Toyark sponsor Big Bad Toy Store (have you check out there awesome new store design?) has opened up pre-orders for the two figures, and they give us our first official images and details. they are priced at $17.99 each and ship out this November.

After taking over the Hyperion corporation, Handsome Jack declared himself dictator of Pandora, and takes full credit for finding The Vault. Nestled in his geostationary “H-shaped” moon base, Jack can send supplies and troops down to Pandora, and most importantly can keep an eye on Vault Hunters at all times.

Tiny Tina is an unstable thirteen year old explosives expert who, along with her parents, was sold into slavery to become a test subject for Handsome Jack’s mutation experiments. This event eventually led to the death of Tina’s parents, and while she was able to escape this fate with the help of a grenade hidden in her dress, Tina has vowed revenge on the man who sold her and her family.

I started playing again for the first time in years. The game really holds up. However, I hate Handsome Jack, and Tina, to a lesser extent. Hopefully we get the Vault Hunters. Right now I'm seeing McFarlane making the same boneheaded mistake NECA did when they acquired the license. Who wants these over the player characters?

Well it's a video game series. They're cooperative FPS semi-RPG games where you and friends can shoot your way through a futuristic/apocalyptic alien world in search of treasure and guns while playing as several different character types. All of that is set over a zany outlandish tone with a good amount of humor and cultural references which keep things weird. The first one honestly wasn't that great but still good, it had its charm but the world was kinda dull and got boring pretty fast. The second one though was pretty awesome, the world was much livelier and far more colorful especially with regards to the cast of supporting characters. The bad guy especially in Borderlands 2, Handsome Jack, put it on a much higher level than the first with his bits of humor and flare all while being a despicable villain that you really wanted to kill. There was a third game which acted as filler for the events between 1 and 2 that was pretty much just more of the same stuff from 2 and then there's also a story-driven player choice oriented game from Telltale (the people who make the great Walking Dead games, etc.). NECA was actually making Borderlands 2 figures when the game was new but the first two figures they made were drastically different in demand levels, the one was the franchise's sorta-mascot robot character Claptrap and the other was a psycho (the basic grunt level enemies of the world). The psycho didn't sell very well while Claptrap sold out and so retailers then on only wanted NECA to make Claptrap variants. So flash-forward to now and we get another go at the franchise but this time from McFarlane so while they won't probably be nearly as articulated as NECA's stuff at least it's an opportunity for more.

As far as games go, anything that I have to play with other people on is an instant no-go for me.

It can be played solo but it definitely encourages and favors playing with other people. I loved it because I could actually play it couch co-op as opposed to having to play online like most every other game.

I've solo'd BL2 both times that I've played it. The run I'm on currently is solo. It's 100% doable. The story is 2 is really good, much better than the low-brow(but great) humor would make you think. The game is also challenging. It's not for tourists like Skyrim or other games that hold your hand. If that sounds cool, then try it. It's cheap, no matter what console you get it on.

I've solo'd BL2 both times that I've played it. The run I'm on currently is solo. It's 100% doable.

Like I said it can be done but at the same time having more players will increase the rarity drop-rate which makes the pursuit of better gear easier so in function Gearbox is promoting multiplayer, in addition of course to the initial benefit of getting to play with friends.

I'm not surprised that McFarlane isn't even indicating they'll do vault hunters, besides the overwhelming popularity of characters like Claptrap and Tina in comparison apparently when NECA had their Zero and Salvador prototypes at conventions retailers showed no interest. It probably doesn't help matters that since there are multiple playable characters you are going to be dealing with split audiences, again this is where Tina and Jack will come out on top because no matter who someone plays as they will be forced to interact with these characters.

As far as games go, anything that I have to play with other people on is an instant no-go for me.

I went solo on all the Borderlands games so I could enjoy the story/experience without the nuisance random online players. It's easy enough to solo apart from one or two missions (not essential missions, just extras for achievements). You should give it a shot on solo, as already been said... It's cheap to pick up now and well worth the play-through If your a PC player, you can pick all up for next to nothing during Steam sales - money well spent if you ask me.

Anyway, would be nice to see some of the main characters come to this line!

Got the Scott Ryder and Marcus Fenix here, certainly an improvement over the rest of the Color Tops figures Pretty sure it was 14 points of articulation, I'd need to check, lol.

They look good on their stands displayed with the others, so worth picking up!

Due to the earlier figures in the series I regretted starting collecting the Color Tops, but if the Ryder and Marcus are anything to go by, these Borderlands ones will be pretty good.

I never understood that "xx Points of Articulation" very well.

Does this mean:

One Point for each Body Part/ or 1 Point for 1 Joint
So for example

1 Point or Articulation - Left Shoulder Joint
1 Point of Articulation - Right Shoulder Joint
1 Point of Articulation - Left Elbow Joint
1 Point of Articulation - Right Elbow Joint
= So 4 Points of Articulation in Total as an Example, is that correct?

Or does Left AND Right Shoulder Joint TOGETHER count as ONE Point of Articulation?

1 Point or Articulation - Left Shoulder Joint
1 Point of Articulation - Right Shoulder Joint
1 Point of Articulation - Left Elbow Joint
1 Point of Articulation - Right Elbow Joint
= So 4 Points of Articulation in Total as an Example, is that correct?

Correct.
Each moving joint is assigned a number of its own. For an easy example I'll use something like an old Star Wars toy. It has 5 points of articulation (POA for short) because 5 parts are given some kind of moving joint. In my example we have a swivel at the neck, another for the right shoulder, again for the left shoulder, the right hip, and lastly the left hip. Five points in total. Nothing is added together or counted as equaling one point except for those individual joints.
Being told how many points of articulation something has though isn't very helpful in knowing where or what those points will be, unless it's a part of a long running line with a recurring articulation layout. Unfortunately McFarlane uses no such layout and each figure is set up kind of differently thanks to the figures already sporting varied dynamic poses. So even though it lists 12 POA 6 of that could wind up being useless. Each leg having a swivel thigh, hinged knee, and swivel boot-cut adds up to 6 points (3 per leg) but if those swivel thighs are set in the right (or rather wrong) place then they negate the utility of all of the rest of the leg's articulation and that 6 starts to feel like a 2 or even worse a 0.